In a Nutshell
pros
- Teaches new languages effectively
- Mobile optimized
- Curriculum tailored to your expertise and time commitment
cons
- No free version
- Each new language requires a new subscription
Babbel at a Glance
Language Variety
Ease of Use
Interactivity
Pricing
Learning Flexibility
Babbel Plans
The standard Babbel subscription provides access to a series of app-based lessons. Babbel provides hundreds of recorded courses and attempts to design a curriculum for you out of them based on your time commitment and current level of expertise with the language.
How much does Babbel cost?
All of Babbel’s plans offer identical features, giving you full access to the Babbel app. You can choose to pay monthly or pre-purchase a subscription for 3, 6, or 12 months. The longer the time frame, the cheaper the monthly subscription cost, as outlined in the table below:
Purchasing a Babbel subscription gives you access to the entire learning library for a single language of your choice. If you want to learn a different language you will have to purchase another subscription.
How does Babbel work?
Babbel offers online courses through its mobile app. When you purchase a subscription, you receive full access to a library of pre-recorded video lessons for a language of your choice.
Before making a purchase, you must create a Babbel account and select a language. Babbel then asks you how much time you can dedicate to learning that language daily and what your current level of expertise with the language is. Based on your answers, it will draw from its library of courses and design a curriculum aimed at helping you achieve your target level of fluency by the end of your subscription period.
Is Babbel reliable and safe?
Babbel has outstanding reviews on Trustpilot, with only 6% of customers rating it less than four stars out of 17,966 reviews. Users seemed particularly pleased with the effectiveness of the app itself, with many customers saying it helped them pick up a language quickly.
At the time of this review Babbel has an F rating on Better Business Bureau (BBB), indicating that it is not BBB accredited. According to the BBB this is due to three unresolved complaints that have been filed against the business, and due to the length of time that the business has been operating—the BBB filing opened just one year ago, November 2020. Based on this information, we believe that Babbel is effective at its core purpose of teaching new languages and is safe to use.
What’s special about Babbel?
While Babbel’s core offering is similar to that of its competition, it has several features to enhance your learning. Free podcasts and videos provide insights into the nature of language in general and offer new perspectives on the experience of learning a new language.
Babbel’s blog, Babbel magazine, tells interesting stories about language and culture around the world. Lastly, Babbel’s pricing is, on the whole, slightly cheaper than that of competing products.
Help and Support
Babbel’s customer service can be reached via online chat on its website, and by email at support@babbel.com. Babbel has an FAQ, the Babbel Help Center, which provides thorough answers to common customer inquiries.
Bottom Line
Babbel provides an effective platform for learning new languages at a lower price point compared to its competition, and customers are highly satisfied with the quality of Babbel’s learning materials.
Although it is priced affordably, this pricing is per language. If you need to learn more than one language, some competitors offer multiple languages on a single subscription, which is cheaper. Additionally, customers complain regularly about the difficulty of canceling a subscription, so buyers must take care to cancel before renewal by contacting Babbel Support directly if they wish to terminate their subscription without any additional charges.
Overall, we consider Babbel to be effective at its intended goal of teaching customers a new language at a fair price point.
FAQs
Is it worth paying for Babbel?
Babbel is worth it if you are looking to learn a single language. Compared to similar platforms, it is generally at least a few dollars cheaper and features a similar level of quality.
For more than one language, Babbel can be a little more expensive than competitors that offer multiple languages in one subscription, since you have to pay for a new subscription for every language you would like to learn.
Can you become fluent with Babbel?
Babbel offers a wide range of courses for each of its 14 languages, from absolute beginner to advanced levels. It is certainly possible to become fluent with Babbel. Customer reviews about the course material have been positive across the board.
How do you get Babbel for free?
Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to receive Babbel completely for free. You can create a free account on the Babbel site but it is not possible to proceed to learning a language until you select a payment plan.
When you sign up for a free account, you may receive an offer for 6 or 3 months free, but only if you purchase an equivalent paid term first.